st. joseph in britain: reconsidering the legends, part i

St. Joseph in Britain: Reconsidering the Legends, Part IAuthor(s): Deborah CrawfordSource: Folklore, Vol. 104, No. 1/2 (1993), pp. 86-98Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1260798 .

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Folklore vol. 104, 1993 86

St. Joseph in Britain: Reconsidering the Legends, Part I DEBORAH CRAWFORD

THE French Arthurian romances of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries contain a significant subset of legendary material associated with the historical figure of St. Joseph of Arimathea. The romances locate the saint or his family in Britain. The older standard criticism has routinely dismissed the legendary Joseph as a late creation produced under suspect circumstances, only marginally predating the appearance of the earlier romances themselves. There are valuable insights in this earlier criticism; however, more appropriate techniques and a broader range of available knowledge allow us new ways of thinking about these stories. The 'Joseph' legends should be considered within the milieu of Christian conversion legend, as well as their traditional Arthurian context. After the personality of Joseph had appeared in the romances, it was fitted back into a base of pre-existing British conversion stories, associated with the theme of first-century Christian contact. Strands of the legends undoubtedly lead back to oral tradition, and concepts developed in the study of oral history are equally useful in dealing with this antique weave of history and legend. The historicity of the 'Joseph' legends is a significant issue, but the historical development is also a legitimate study. Both can be productively explored in tandem. Final conclusions and ultimate solutions are not in order at this point, but the process of discovery should begin again, drawing in the related information available from other disciplines.

In the older criticism, a minority opinion did exist. Alfred Nutt, whose Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail appeared in 1888, stressed the relation of the stories to conversion legend; he also argued that the genesis of the 'Joseph' legends was still unexplained. He identified two distinct forms of the early history of the grail, both naming Joseph as the initial possessor of the vessel. In the first, Joseph or his descendants are also responsible for bringing the grail to Britain, and converting the inhabitants. In the second, Brons is designated as the guardian of the grail, and Britain is converted by Brons and his son, Alain. Nutt also suggested associations between Brons and Bran the Blessed, son of Ll^r, hero of a Welsh conversion legend. He saw the 'Brons' version as the older form of the early history, 'still chiefly, if not wholly, a legend, the main purport of which is to recount the conversion of Britain.' He added the following about the 'Joseph' version: '[w]e do not know how or at what date the legend of the conversion of Britain by Joseph originated."2 Nutt's summation still holds. Despite the imaginative scenarios created over the intervening years, we still do not have an adequate explanation of the initial legends linking Joseph and the grail, and Joseph and Britain.

The initial step in re-evaluation is to look at the development of the 'Joseph' stories, as it can be traced through written sources. Apparently the earliest written British version occurs in an altered copy of William of Malmesbury's De Antiquitate Glastonie Ecclesie, produced about 1247.3 It survives in the 'T' manuscript, Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R.5.33 (724),4 and begins in this manner:

1. The account of how the twelve disciples of the apostles St Philip and St James first founded the church of Glastonbury begins here.



ST. JOSEPH IN BRITAIN: RECONSIDERING THE LEGENDS 87

... St Philip, as Freculph attests in the fourth chapter of his second book, came to the land of the Franks where he converted many to the faith by his preaching and baptised them. Desiring to spread the word of Christ further he sent twelve of his disciples into Britain to teach the word of life. It is said that he appointed as their leader his very dear friend, Joseph of Arimathea, who had buried the Lord. They came to Britain in 63 AD, the fifteenth year after the assumption of the blessed Mary, and confidently began to preach the faith of Christ ... [I]n the thirty-first year after the passion of the Lord, the fifteenth after the assumption of the glorious Virgin, they completed a chapel as they had been instructed, making the lower part of all its walls of twisted wattle, an unsightly construction no doubt but one adorned by God with many miracles. Since it was the first one in that territory the son of God dignified it with a greater honour by dedicating it in honour of his mother.5

The story also describes the environs of the venture, an 'island' named Yniswitrin, in a wooded, marshy area. This initial gift of land from a pagan king was later supplemented by subsequent kings, resulting in the twelve hides,6 a portion of land for each of St. Philip's disciples. According to John Scott, the material in this first chapter was inserted in the 1247 revision to incorporate Joseph into the history of the monastery of Glastonbury, following the appearance of the Arthurian History of the Holy Grail.7

However, it was a very tentative incorporation. The reference to Joseph is prefaced with the phrase, 'it is said'; much of the rest of the account is in more definite terms. The portion referring to Saints Philip and James is repeated several more times in the De Antiquitate, without naming Joseph.8 An explicit reference to Joseph in relation to Arthurian writings does appear at the end of the first chapter; Scott notes that it occurs, however, '[a]t the foot of the page in a late C13 hand,'9 apparently added later.

There are no surviving manuscripts of the original, unrevised De Antiquitate; but William of Malmesbury did include references to Glastonbury in another work, the Chronicle of the Kings of England. The author's final revision of that work had been completed by 1140.10

Moreover there are documents of no small credit, which have been discovered in certain places to the following effect: 'No other hands than those of the disciples of Christ erected the church of Glastonbury.' Nor is it dissonant from probability: for if Philip, the Apostle, preached to the Gauls, as Freculphus relates in the fourth chapter of his second book, it may be believed that he also planted the word on this side of the channel also. But that I may not seem to balk the expectation of my readers by vain imaginations, leaving all doubtful matter I shall proceed to the relation of substantial truths."

Attention has been focused on William's reservations regarding the truth of what he recorded. Of greater significance is what he recorded, and when. By 1140 William had been aware of written versions of a legend recounting first-century Christian contact with Britain, specifically naming Glastonbury.

The interesting part, of course, is what happened between 1140 and 1247. Sometime during the last quarter of the twelfth century, Chretien de Troyes composed the Perceval; or the Story of the Grail, at the request of Count Philip of Flanders.12 In the romance, the hero Perceval comes to the hall of an invalid nobleman. There, he witnesses a procession formed by a squire bearing a bleeding lance, two squires carrying golden candelabra, and a maiden who carries a grail of gold, beautifully jewelled. The procession passes through the hall several times; no explanation of its meaning is given.'3 Later on, Perceval learns that the grail contained a mass-wafer.'4



88 DEBORAH CRAWFORD

Chr6tien never completed the Perceval; however, circa 1200, others began to add continuations to his work, featuring a second Arthurian hero, Gauvain. The episodes of the First Continuation contain references to Joseph of Arimathea, although not in all manuscripts. In Section V of the First Continuation, 'Gauvain's Grail Visit; the fourth episode recounts the following events: Gauvain also comes to a great hall; there the grail provides food to those present. Gauvain sees a bleeding lance, and is told that it is the lance of Longinus."5 (In legend, Longinus was one of the soldiers who participated in Christ's crucifixion.)

In the fifth episode, Gauvain's host tells him how Joseph of Arimathea had used the grail to preserve the blood of Christ, following his death. The host relates how Joseph had 'taken the body down and buried it, had been imprisoned and then exiled, and how with Nicodemus he had brought the Grail to England, where it has always been in the keeping of a descendant of Joseph. "6 All of the episodes belonging to 'Gauvain's Grail Visit' are common to the extant manuscripts, except for this fifth episode, the one referring to Joseph. It appears, but not consistently, in the manuscripts of the Long and Short Redactions. It does not occur at all in the manuscripts of the Mixed Redaction.17

Part of the manuscripts of the Long Redaction also contain another reference to Joseph. This is found in Section I, 'Guiromelant' in the eighth episode. Gauvain removes a sword from the crypt of Montesclaire; it had once belonged to Judas Maccabeus, and had been sent to Montesclaire by Joseph of Arimathea.'8 The pattern of the episodes in the First Continuation suggests that the 'Joseph' segments may be a subsequent addition, extending a process of identifying Arthurian objects with individuals and relics from the Holy Land.

Towards the end of the twelfth century, Robert de Boron produced Le Roman de L'Estoire Dou Graal, which is preserved in fr. 20047 of the Bibliotheque Nationale, a manuscript from the end of the thirteenth century.'9 The work focuses on Joseph of Arimathea and the grail. Also of central importance is a second figure, Hebron or Bron, Joseph's brother-in-law. According to William Nitze, this verse narrative probably first identifies the grail as a relic of Christ's crucifixion, the platter of the Last Supper, and the chalice used in the mass.20

The story tells how Joseph is imprisoned after Christ's death; Christ appears to him, and gives him the grail, which is a vessel used at the Last Supper. Later it is said that the grail contains Christ's blood, a relic of his death. For many years after his release from prison, Joseph serves as guardian of the grail, ruling over a familial community of Christians. Then one of the number, Petrus, is commanded to journey forth, and the following is foretold about his chosen destination: '. . . he will tell thee without doubt that he will go to the vale of Avaron and dwell in that country. That land is stretched out towards the west.'21 As if to emphasize the goal of the journey, Petrus' subsequent words echo the prophecy: 'I shall go into that western land that is very savage, into the vale of Avaron, to await God's mercy ...'22 There, Petrus is to remain until the coming of the son of Bron's son Alein. Before Petrus leaves, the guardianship of the grail passes to Bron,23 and an angel has commanded that ultimately it should be given to the 'son of his son'.24

By 1200, 'Avaron' would have carried some very definite associations for the readers of Robert's work. Circa 1136,25 Geoffrey of Monmouth's imaginative History of the Kings of Britain had identified the 'Isle of Avalon' as the refuge of the mortally wounded




King Arthur.26 In approximately 1191, it was announced that King Arthur's tomb had been discovered at Glastonbury; thus 'Glastonbury became publicly identified as Avalon'.27

By 1140, William of Malmesbury had recorded a legend of first-century Christian contact with Britain, naming Glastonbury, and identifying the individuals as disciples of Christ Himself. By 1200 or so, Glastonbury had been equated with the Arthurian Avalon, and St. Joseph had appeared in French romance, associated with relics from the Holy Land; either Joseph or his family had been designated as the means of these relics reaching Britain, or the 'Avaron' of the west. It seems that Joseph's name was tentatively added to Glastonbury's official legends midway through the thirteenth century. The acceptance was certainly not immediate.

About 1342,28 John of Glastonbury wrote his Cronica sive Antiquitates Glastoniensis Ecclesie, retelling and enhancing the monastery's history, and the related 'Joseph' legends. Unfortunately, the earliest copy, the 'C' manuscript, does not contain the initial portion of the work, where most of the references to Joseph are located. The material is included in later manuscripts: 'A' Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 790; 'P,' Princeton, Princeton University, MS Robert Garrett 153, and 'T,' London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius A.5.29 None of these is earlier than late fifteenth century.30

The story is told again of the twelve disciples of St. Philip, and their leader, Joseph of Arimathea. The twelve hides are mentioned, and the wattle church dedicated by Christ in honour of His mother. But many new elements are also added. In a section devoted to the cemetery of Glastonbury, John writes the following:

The chief personages of the country would rather await the day of resurrection in the monastery of Glastonbury, in the protection of Mary the ever-virgin Mother of God, than anywhere else ... Therefore a certain soothsayer of the Britons, Melkin by name, thus began his prophecy: 'The Island of Avalon, eager for the death of pagans, at the burial of them all will be decorated beyond the others in the world with the soothsaying spheres of the prophecy, and in the future will be adorned with those who praise the Most High. Abbadare, powerful in Saphat, most noble of the pagans, took his sleep there with 104,000 men. Among these Joseph of Arimathea received eternal slumber in a marble tomb, and he lies on a divided line next to the oratory's southern corner where the wickerwork is constructed above the mighty and venerable Maiden, and where the aforesaid thirteen spheres rest. Joseph has with him in the sarcophagus two white and silver vessels, full of the blood and sweat of the prophet Jesus. Once his sarcophagus is discovered, it will be visible, whole and undecayed, and open to the whole world. From then on those who dwell in that noble island will lack neither water nor the dew of heaven. For a long time before the day of judgment in Josaphat these things will be openly declared to the living? Thus far Melkin.31

A genealogy is given, demonstrating that King Arthur was a descendant of Joseph's family.32 There is an extended passage33 based on the 'Gospel of Nicodemus',34 and later Arthurian stories.

One omission is also significant. In the multitudinous heap of the monastery's relic collection, there is no grail.35 In a further citation of Arthurian legend, a parenthetic reference is made to 'the vessel which is there called the Holy Grail'.36 No further comment on the grail is given. The 'two white and silver vessels' of Melkin's prophecy had become the relics associated with Joseph; Glastonbury tacitly rejected the grail.

A final element in the 'Joseph' legends comes quite late. 'The Lyfe of Joseph of Armathia' was probably written in the early 1500s, and was published in 1520.37 The poem recounts how Joseph and Nicodemus took Christ down from the cross, and how



90 DEBORAH CRAWFORD

Joseph collected the blood in two cruets. Joseph later comes to Britain, and lives at Glastonbury as the chief of twelve other hermits. Joseph builds a chapel at Glastonbury, with an image of Our Lady; he ultimately dies and is buried within Glastonbury's confines.38 In noting the local miracles, the author makes what is evidently the first written reference to the Holy Thorn:39

Thre hawthornes also, that groweth in werall, Do burge and bere grene leaues at Christmas As fresshe as other in May ...40

Given a framework of the development of the written versions of the legends, it is possible to see the biases and errors inherent in a series of ideas that have haunted past critical analyses, and still persist in modified forms. The 'Joseph' legends have been considered automatically suspect because of their supposed origin. The 'lies' of Geoffrey of Monmouth and the 'fabrications' of the monks of Glastonbury are assumed to be the base of the legends. A related concept is that the legends can be treated as a monolithic, primarily textual entity, implying a single creation point in time. A third dominant idea has been that the original association of Joseph and the grail occurred because symbolically the grail had come to represent Christ's body.

One early critical theory held that Christian legend was the basis for the stories associating Joseph and the grail. Birch-Hirschfeld, perhaps the most significant early proponent of this point of view, used symbolic parallels he found in Robert de Boron's work to explain the link between Joseph and the grail stories. Alfred Nutt summarized the argument as follows:

What then led Boron to connect the sacramental vessel with the Joseph legend? ... [W]hy should Joseph become the Grail-keeper? Because the fortunes of the vessel used by the Saviour symbolise those of the Saviour's body; as that was present at the Last Supper, was brought to Pilate, handed over to Joseph, was buried, and after three days arose, so with the Grail ... Thus Joseph who laid Christ's body in the grave is the natural guardian of the symbol which commemorates that event; thus, too, the Grail is the natural centre point of all the symbolism of Mass and sacrament; and thus the Grail found its place in the Joseph legend, ultimately becoming its most important feature.41

There is a markedly religious, Christian context to Robert's Le Roman de L'Estoire Dou Graal, in which the above scheme is supposedly worked out. In such a context, there are initial difficulties in equating a new symbol with Christ's body, in that a very powerful symbol already exists. 'While they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body' (Matt. 26.26). That symbolism is explicitly repeated in Robert's poem. When Christ appears in Joseph's prison, bringing him the vessel later called the grail, Christ repeats the equation of His own death with the elements involved in the Last Supper, and its sacramental echo, the communion service. The bread is His body, and the wine is His blood. Further, the vessel itself is given another identification, that of the chalice.42 In later segments of the poem, the grail is again referred to as the vessel that contains Christ's blood, collected as He was taken down from the cross.43 These references reinforce the symbolism of the chalice, which holds the sacramental equivalent of Christ's blood.

In the list of parallel events in Birch-Hirschfeld's argument, more than one are not in the text. The vessel is not buried, it is hidden away in Joseph's house;44 and it does




not reappear after three days. When Joseph is confronted by the Jews, he says he has left Christ in the tomb four days before;45 he is then put in prison, and Christ brings the vessel to him some time after that. The three initial events in the sequence, the vessel's presence at the Last Supper, acquisition by Pilate, and transfer to Joseph, are just as easily interpreted as an explanation of how Joseph acquired the vessel, since Scripture does not record his presence at the Last Supper. Birch-Hirschfeld's 'natural' association of Joseph and the grail works only if an arbitrary symbolism is imposed on Robert de Boron's poem, linking the grail and Christ's body.

John Rhys, whose Studies in the Arthurian Legend was published in 1891, emphasized the connections between Welsh literature and Arthurian legend.46 He too saw the similarities between the 'Brons' version of the early history, and the Welsh story of Bran the Blessed.47 However, he remarks in reference to this latter legend, '[t]he whole is so like Geoffrey of Monmouth's work, that one feels disappointed not to find it in his writings.'48 Rhys expressed a valid perception about the story itself, but he has the wrong culprit. Some later scholars have accepted as legitimate the association of Brons and the mythic figure of Bran the Blessed.49 But the specific conversion legend mentioned by Rhys 'cannot be traced back to any source earlier than the eighteenth century .. .50 The account was propagated through an alteration made by Iolo Morganwg in Triad 81 of the Welsh Triads.51 Unfortunately, Rhys' gratuitous reference to Geoffrey is not unique.

There is a pervasive tendency to associate 'Joseph' legends and conversion legends set in the first century with Geoffrey of Monmouth. Geoffrey's references to Arthur and Avalon undoubtedly contributed to the identification of Avalon and Glastonbury, and he does include a conversion legend set in the second century.52 However, there are no 'Joseph' legends in The History of the Kings of Britain, or accounts of a first- century conversion of Britain. Critics have reassessed the value of Geoffrey's work in recent decades, and have hopefully corrected simplistic notions about his writings. However that issue may ultimately be resolved, the 'Joseph' legends and related conversion stories deserve to be considered unshadowed by an unreasonable association.

Another common approach has been to view the 'Joseph' legends as part of an extended series of fabrications and forgeries originating in the monastery of Glastonbury. In 1898, Ferdinand Lot claimed that the abbey had been a centre of forgery, 'une officine de faux',53 since the tenth century. Lot's argumentation does not really support that tenth- century date with anything other than some suppositions on the origin of an eponymic legend, and similar theorizing about an early life of St. Dunstan. What he does discuss at length is Glastonbury's situation in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, conditions supposedly leading to the forgery of charters there, and the localization of saints' legends. He cites the disputes with the bishop of Wells, supported by the archbishop of Canterbury. Charters were needed to counter the intrusive claims of the bishop, and appropriate documents were duly fabricated. According to Lot, Glastonbury then embarked on a campaign to enrich the monastery with the donations of pilgrims and wealthy patrons. To attain this end, the monks simply invented stories, including the one that Glastonbury was the oldest church in England.54 Lot presents the legends of Glastonbury as part and parcel of the same phenomenon that produced forged charters, itself the result of conditions peculiar to Glastonbury.

Actually, the recording of saints' legends was a widespread activity in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, motivated by situations created by the Norman Conquest. The reputations and legends of the English saints were being strongly questioned by



92 DEBORAH CRAWFORD

the new Norman churchmen. Old traditions and established customs had come under attack. The old monasteries began to write down their saints' stories, and the histories of the religious houses themselves, as a response to the threat both real and perceived. Efforts were made to recapture past history, and to explain evidence that did exist.55 In works such as William of Malmesbury's De Antiquitate, even in its altered state, it is necessary to recognize legitimate antiquarian and historical research as a strong factor in what was produced. The work itself contains direct comment on the process of rediscovering and reconstructing a dim past: 'we have salvaged some knowledge of the facts from the whirlpool of the past and have now escaped, as it were, from the shadows of ignorance into brighter times .. '56

Similarly, the forged charters of this era often set forth 'genuine materials from the past'.57 And, in the case of the charters, more was involved than the monasteries' need to demonstrate their history and ancient rights to their Norman overlords. A fundamental change was occurring in the way people did business. A society where such transactions were commonly oral was being forced to adopt the use of written documents: 'the spread of literacy and of written instruments of land tenure made the eleventh and twelfth centuries, in a special sense, the period of the shift from oral to written testimony.' 5 The shift to literacy in England has been extensively documented in M. T. Clanchy's From Memory to Written Record. The work includes the following analysis of the issue of 'forged' documents:

Forged charters were often based on earlier authentic documents or on good oral traditions. The purpose of forgery was to produce a record in a form which was acceptable, particularly in courts of law, at the time it was made ... A good oral tradition or an authentic charter of an early Anglo-Saxon king might be rejected by a court of law because it seemed strange, whereas a forged charter would be acceptable because it suited contemporary notions of what an ancient charter should be like ... Forgers recreated the past in an acceptable literate form. They are best understood not as occasional deviants on the peripheries of legal practice, but as experts entrenched at the centre of literary and intellectual culture in the twelfth century.59

Understanding the very concept of forgery, as well as its moral culpability, presupposes a fully literate society. Lot's broad condemnation of Glastonbury's charters and Glastonbury's legends is simply inappropriate. The writing down of legends and the production of charters did not necessarily proceed from the same causes. Equally unacceptable is the implication that the monks of Glastonbury were suffering from a collective failure of the moral sense, spanning several centuries. Glastonbury's legends must be viewed in the context of time and place; extended dishonesty is not an adequate explanation for their existence.

Jessie Weston, writing early in this century, proposed a base of pagan ritual as the underlying stratum of Arthurian romance. However, her theory on the 'Joseph' legends shared two more standard characteristics with other related criticism: a rooted belief that the legends were a creation of the late twelfth century, and a fine disdain for supporting evidence. Initially, Weston echoes Lot's arguments, claiming that Glastonbury had become 'a veritable bureau for the fabrication of fictitious deeds'."60 She further explains the 'Joseph' legends as an invention on behalf of the monks of Glastonbury, inspired by legends associated with another Benedictine monastery, the French Fecamp. Supposedly, close, friendly ties existed between the two houses, resulting in the Glastonbury clone of a Fecamp legend:

[W]hen we have thus, on the one side of the water Fescamp, with Nicodemus, the Saint-Sang, and Holy Fig-tree, it seems to me that the genesis of the corresponding sequence on the other




side of the channel, Glastonbury, Joseph, the Grail, and the Holy Thorn, is not far to seek!... [I]t seems to me that the whole weight of evidence is in favour of the Joseph Grail story being a mere literary invention of the latter part of the twelfth century, inspired by the famous tradition of Fescamp, and based upon a romance orginally constructed by the minstrels attached to that foundation.61

Weston cites no direct evidence to support her theorizing. As we have seen, the written versions of the legends do not support a simultaneous genesis of Weston's associated elements, Joseph, Glastonbury, the grail, and the Holy Thorn. In the Perceval, the grail appears without Joseph. Glastonbury had its own legend of Christian contact well before the Perceval appeared. And the Holy Thorn is first mentioned in writing in the 1500s, although R. F Treharne has remarked that the hawthorn 'appears on a fourteenth-century seal of the Abbey .. .'62 Even the close association with Fecamp is highly questionable. One recorded incident from earlier years indicates a marked resistance to French and Norman ways, rather than a close and friendly communication. In 1081, Glastonbury's Norman abbot attempted to replace Glastonbury's Gregorian chant with that of William of Fecamp, as well as enforcing other changes. When the monks resisted, the abbot sent soldiers after them into the church itself; a number of the monks were either killed or wounded.63 The shocking incident apparently lived long in memory; it is recorded in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the writings of Florence of Worcester,64 as well as in the De Antiquitate. Weston's lack of evidence to support her theory is a serious initial problem; the errors are compounded by her failure to deal with the legends as a construct developed over time.

In 1923, James Douglas Bruce repeated and endorsed Birch-Hirschfeld's contentions regarding the association of Joseph and the grail:

Now, in the history of the Holy Grail, as given in Robert's poem, we have an undeniable parallelism with the history of Christ in his closing days. The Grail is present with Christ at the Last Supper; like Christ it is brought to Pilate; Joseph of Arimathea receives it, as he receives the body of our Lord; it is present at the entombment, remains then concealed and at last reappears with the risen Christ ... [W]e have in Robert's history of the Holy Grail a characteristic piece of mediaeval symbolism. The Grail is the symbol of Christ's body ... Joseph, who laid Christ's body in the g[r]ave, is the natural guardian of the symbol which commemorates that event; thus, too, the Grail is the natural centre of all the symbolism of mass and sacrament, and we have, consequently, the intimate union of the Joseph legend with the story of the Grail.65

Bruce also categorically denies the possible role of oral tradition in such an association, labelling it as the creation of Robert de Boron.66 The slight rephrasing does not remove any objections to the original argument. Both Christ's body and the grail are given other symbolic identifications in the poem. In the supposed parallel sequence of events, Bruce replaces the last two with small variations; the vessel is merely present when Christ is buried, and the reappearance of the grail is linked to Christ's reappearance. In the text, there is no emphasis on the grail's presence at the burial.67 And the 'risen Christ' has appeared to quite a number of people before He comes to Joseph in prison, bringing the grail.68 The appearance of the grail is not simultaneous with His resurrection, as the phrasing of the argument implies.

In addition, Bruce cites Geoffrey of Monmouth as one source for William of Malmesbury's statements about the founding of Glastonbury. He explains that William was attempting to establish English independence from Rome, by creating a separate apostolic origin.69 However, Bruce does not provide supporting evidence for William's



94 DEBORAH CRAWFORD

alleged secessionist views; and he claims that the whole line of reasoning, Geoffrey of Monmouth and all, has been proved by another scholar, whose arguments he does not present." He later refers to the alterations in the De Antiquitate as deliberate fraud on the part of the monks of Glastonbury."7

La Legende Arthurienne et Le Graal of Jean Marx was published in 1952. It explores the multiple influences of Celtic legend on Arthurian stories. Marx notes the association of Bran the Blessed and Brons,72 and presents an analysis of historical conditions in the twelfth century that could account for the localization of Arthurian legend at Glastonbury. According to Marx, royal influence aided the development of the legends of Glastonbury. Rich in Celtic tradition, headed by powerful abbots with royal connections, Glastonbury was an ideal channel for reconciling Celtic regions to the interests of the ruling dynasty.73 Marx also discusses the prevalence of stories about relics of Christ's death, and suggests that they were available in written form at Glastonbury: little books of miracle stories about the holy blood, perhaps linked to F'camp.74 Marx further theorizes that Robert de Boron visited England, and came under the patronage of Henry II. He thus came in contact with Glastonbury; the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth,75 plus Glastonbury and Fecamp legends,76 inspired his early history of the grail. And Marx specifically refers his readers back to Jessie Weston's work on the subject.77

There are quite a number of interesting points in Marx's arguments. He recognizes a strong Celtic influence at Glastonbury, and the picture he draws of royal influences and agendas may be politically accurate. But his explanation of Robert de Boron's sources does not hold fogether. Weston's F'camp theory is critically flawed. Further, fifty years after the end of the twelfth century, we see the monks of Glastonbury making a hesitant incorporation of Joseph into William's De Antiquitate, with no mention of associated relics related to Christ's blood. It is most likely that they were the recipients, not the sources, of Robert's information.

R. S. Loomis, in The Development of Arthurian Romance, gives an interesting variant explanation of the association of Christ's body with the grail. His argument turns on a mistranslation, rather than symbolic equivalents. In the Perceval, the hero beholds a grail carried in procession, and is later told that the grail contains a mass-wafer. Bran, the hero of Welsh legend, is associated both with a grail, or magic platter, and a magic drinking horn. The Welsh word for the horn, corn, translated in the nominative case into French, gave cors; and this was taken to refer to the "body" of Christ, the Corpus Christi, the miracle-working mass-wafer. 'Hence the perplexing association of the Grail with the Eucharist .. .7' Loomis then gives the argument another twist, and uses it to explain Joseph:

Why was Joseph chosen as the first custodian of the vessel, when there was nothing in the gospels or the apocrypha to suggest it? ... It is a most remarkable fact that the very same hypothesis previously advanced for the connection of the Grail with the mass-wafer in Chr6tien's poem would also account for the association of the Grail with Joseph ... The choice of Joseph as the first custodian of the Grail can be explained just as reasonably as due to the misinterpretation of cors as 'body' this time, however, equated with the body which Joseph took down from the cross and placed in his tomb.79

To begin with, Bran's platter and Bran's drinking horn are two separate motifs, and it is not immediately obvious that they can be substituted for each other at random. Secondly, Loomis has postulated a situation in which someone was able to mistranslate




a word, and simultaneously retain its original meaning. In the Perceval, we have a grail and a mass-wafer, the rough equivalent of a corn and a cors. By the time we get-to Joseph, the horn of Bran has become a grail and a literal adult-sized body, and the mistranslation theory has reached the point of absurdity. Try to reconstruct a context, a situation in which a translator could reasonably misunderstand a single word, and turn it into the juxtaposition of a grail and an adult corpse. It's an interesting exercise. But that, according to Loomis, is how the guardianship of the grail was assigned to Joseph, 'guardian' of the body of the crucified Christ.

In 1971, seven or eight years after The Development of Arthurian Romance, Valerie Lagorio suggested the need to modify standard critical views toward the legends. She points out that Glastonbury was not unique in its creation of such stories, but part of a widespread medieval phenomenon."8 While still citing situations specific to Glastonbury as major influences on the development of the 'Joseph' legends, she does present a basically different explanation for their presence. Joseph became a part of Glastonbury's legends in the wake of the incorporation of Arthurian legend, due to Joseph's appearance in the grail romances."s And she mentions both Welsh and Christian conversion legend, a milieu of 'traditional belief, as background to the legends.82

However, Dr. Lagorio does contend that Glastonbury was attempting to acquire an apostolic founder in Joseph, following the pattern of similar legendizing elsewhere. Joseph was 'acclaimed as Glastonbury's apostolic founder by a series of interpolations in William of Malmesbury's De antiquitate, made shortly before 1250.'83 Whatever use was made of Joseph's association with the monastery in later centuries, the virtually parenthetic mention of him in the 1247 revision of the De Antiquitate can hardly be viewed as a major effort to present Joseph as an apostolic founder. It appears to be a rather reserved and belated recognition of a story which had apparently gained currency through Arthurian romance. Dr. Lagorio's article is in a sense transitional. There are arguments reminiscent of traditional criticism, but at least two significant shifts in critical thinking are also present. First, a more realistic historical approach is taken to the abbey's traditions, and the external influence of Arthurian legend. Secondly, the greater context of conversion legend is recognized.

In contrast, Antonia Gransden has continued in the established vein of 'Joseph' criticism, in an article written in 1976. The Glastonbury monks come in for their share of abuse, although William of Malmesbury is kindly exempted.84 Gransden also cites Geoffrey of Monmouth as the 'direct influence' 85 on the monks in their adoption of an eponymic legend for Glastonbury; such stories, however, are common in Celtic tradition. Forms of the word 'propaganda' pop up again and again in reference to the legends; it is suggested that the creation of the legends was motivated by events centrally concerning the monastery, including the fire of 1184 that destroyed most of the abbey.86

The 'Joseph' legends deserve to be considered again, free from the reputation of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and with an altered understanding of the historical era that produced the forged Glastonbury charters. Where the larger historical context accounts for Glastonbury's production of legends and charters, it is often misleading, and hardly necessary, to explain the phenomena as the result of events exclusive to Glastonbury. And it should be remembered that a written legend of first-century Christian contact, naming Glastonbury, existed forty to fifty years before the fire of 1184 and the Arthurian discoveries around 1191.



96 DEBORAH CRAWFORD

The theories which approach the legends solely as text, forged or created at a single point in time, do not successfully address the existing evidence. The surviving documents indicate that the legends developed over an extensive period. It is also necessary to recognize that there is no current, adequate, fully developed explanation of how the personality of Joseph came to be associated with both the grail and the bringing of the Christian faith to Britain. The proposals of Birch-Hirschfeld, Bruce, and Loomis cannot be sustained under careful logical analysis. The process of discovery should begin again, and in a sequel to this article I shall explore some fresh approaches. The Huntington Library San Marino, CA, USA

NOTES

1. Alfred Nutt, Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail (London, David Nutt, 1888), p. 218. 2. Ibid., p. 220. 3. John Scott, The Early History of Glastonbury: An Edition, Translation, and Study of William

of Malmesbury's De Antiquitate Glastonie Ecclesie (Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 1981), pp. 35-36. 4. Ibid., p. 36. 5. Ibid., pp. 43-45. 6. A hide is a measure of land usually considered to be the amount of land necessary to support

a single family. Definition adapted from Ronald E. Zupko, Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. Joseph R. Strayer, 13 vols. (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1985), 6, pp. 222-223.

7. Scott, p. 36. 8. Ibid., pp: 57, 87, 95. 9. Ibid., p. 46. 10. James Carley, The Chronicle of Glastonbury Abbey: An Edition, Translation and Study of

John of Glastonbury's Cronica sive Antiquitates Glastoniensis Ecclesie, tr. David Townsend (Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 1985), p. xxxvi, note 5.

11. William of Malmesbury, Chronicle of the Kings of England, tr. J. A. Giles (London, Henry G. Bohn, 1847), p. 21.

12. 'Introduction,' Chr~tien de Troyes, Perceval; or, the Story of the Grail, tr. Ruth Harwood Cline (Athens, University of Georgia Press, 1985), p. x.

13. Chr~tien de Troyes, Perceval; or, the Story of the Grail, tr. Ruth Harwood Cline (Athens, University of Georgia Press, 1985), pp. 82-94.

14. Ibid., p. 173. 15. 'Introduction, The Continuations of the Old French Perceval of Chritien de Troyes: The First

Continuation, ed. William Roach (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1949), I, pp. lviii-lix.

16. Ibid., p. lix. 17. Ibid., pp. Iviii-lx. The multiple manuscripts of the First Continuation make it more

productive to deal with them using William Roach's division into redactions, rather than attempting to single out individual manuscripts.

18. Ibid., pp. xlvi-xlix. 19. 'Introduction,' Robert de Boron, Le Roman de L'Estoire Dou Graal, ed. William Nitze

(Paris, Libraire de la Soci&t6 des Anciens Textes Frangais, 1927), p. v. 20. Ibid. 21. Margaret Schlauch, Medieval Narrative (New York, Prentice-Hall, 1934), p. 190. The

original reads as follows: Il te dira, n'en doute nus, Qu'es vaus d'Avaron s'en ira Et en ce pals demourra. Ces terres trestout vraiement Se treient devers Occident.




Robert de Boron, Le Roman de L'Estoire Dou Graal, ed. William Nitze (Paris, Libraire de la Societe des Anciens Textes Frangais, 1927), p. 109, 11. 3122-3126.

22. Schlauch, p. 192. The original reads as follows: En la terre vers Occident Ki est sauvage durement, Es vaus d'Avaron m'en irei, La merci Dieu attenderei.

Robert de Boron, p. 112, 11. 3219-3222. 23. Schlauch, pp. 192-195. 24. Ibid., p. 193. 25. 'Introduction; Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, tr. Lewis Thorpe

(Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, rpt. 1978), p. 9. 26. Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, tr. Lewis Thorpe

(Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, rpt. 1978), p. 261. 27. Carley, p. xlix. 28. Ibid., pp. xxv-xxx. 29. Ibid., pp. lxi, xiv-xvii. 30. Ibid., pp. xiv-xvi. 31. Ibid., pp. 29-31. 32. Ibid., p. 55. 33. Ibid., p. 47-51. 34. 'The Gospel of Nicodemus,' The Lost Books of the Bible and The Forgotten Books of Eden

(Cleveland, The World Publishing Co., 1963), pp. 74-78. 35. Carley, pp. 23-29. 36. Ibid., p. 53. 37. Anonymous, 'The Lyfe of Joseph of Armathia,' Joseph of Arimathie, ed. Walter Skeat (1520,

rpt. London, N. Triibner, 1871), p. 35. 38. Joseph of Arimathie, pp. 37-49. 39. Roger Sherman Loomis, The Development of Arthurian Romance (New York, W. W. Norton

& Co., 1970), p. 123. 40. Joseph of Arimathie, p. 49. 41. Nutt, pp. 116-117. 42. Robert de Boron, pp. 31-32, 11. 893-909. 43. Ibid., pp. 84-85, 11. 2431-2458; p. 85, 11. 2466-2472; pp. 105-106, 11. 3005-3034. 44. Ibid., p. 30, 11. 857-862. 45. Ibid., p. 24, 11. 679-692. 46. John Rhys, Studies in the Arthurian Legend (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1891), p. v. 47. Ibid., pp. 171-173. 48. Ibid., p. 173. 49. Helaine Newstead, Bran the Blessed in Arthurian Romance (New York, Columbia University

Press, 1939; rpt. AMS Press, 1966), p. 6. 50. Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Welsh Triads, ed. Rachel Bromwich (Cardiff, University of Wales

Press, 1978), p. 285. 51. Ibid. 52. Geoffrey of Monmouth, pp. 124-126. 53. Ferdinand Lot, 'Glastonbury et Avalon,' Romania 27 (1898), p. 537. 54. Ibid., pp. 544-549. 55. See Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England c. 550 to c. 1307 (Ithaca, Cornell

University Press, 1974), pp. 105-107. 56. Scott, p. 115. 57. Ibid., p. 32. 58. Christopher Brooke, Medieval Church and Society (London, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1971),

p. 115. 59. M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England, 1066-1307 (Cambridge, Harvard

University Press, 1979), p. 249.



98 DEBORAH CRAWFORD

60. Jessie L. Weston, The Quest of the Holy Grail (London, G. Bell & Sons, 1913), pp. 59-60. 61. Ibid., pp. 60-62. 62. R. F. Treharne, The Glastonbury Legends (London, The Cresset Press, 1967), p. 122. 63. Scott, pp. 157-159. 64. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Dorothy Whitelock (New Brunswick, Rutgers University

Press, 1961), p. 160, notes 6, 8. 65. James Douglas Bruce, The Evolution of Arthurian Romance, 2 vols. (Baltimore, The Johns

Hopkins Press, 1923), I, pp. 238-241. 66. Ibid., p. 238. 67. Robert de Boron, pp. 20-21, 11. 575-592. 68. Ibid., pp. 21-22, 11. 603-614. 69. Bruce, p. 262. 70. Ibid., p. 262, note 53. 71. Ibid., p. 265. 72. Jean Marx, La Legende Arthurienne et Le Graal (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France,

1952), pp. 197-200. 73. Ibid., pp. 304-305. 74. Ibid., p. 306. 75. Ibid., pp. 308-310. 76. Ibid., p. 343. 77. Ibid., p. 343, note 3. 78. Loomis, p. 63. 79. Ibid., p. 118. 80. Valerie M. Lagorio, 'The Evolving Legend of St. Joseph of Glastonbury,' Speculum 46

(1971), p. 210. 81. Ibid., p. 209. 82. Ibid., pp. 212-213. 83. Ibid., p. 216. 84. Antonia Gransden, 'The Growth of the Glastonbury Traditions and Legends in the Twelfth

Century,' The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 27 (1976), p. 346. 85. Ibid., p. 357. 86. Ibid., pp. 338-339.



st. joseph in britain: reconsidering the legends, part i

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